1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus designed to operate for so-called variable printing of printing an image on a sheet of recording medium, embedding variable data that vary from printed sheet to printed sheet in fixed data (common data) such as form data that are common to all the printed sheets, and to a method of controlling such an image forming apparatus.
2. Related Background Art
So-called variable printing has become available in recent years. It is a high speed printing technique for producing a large number of printed sheets of recording medium such as direct mail letters and credit card bill letters by registering form data that are fixed data (common data) to an image forming apparatus in advance and synthetically combining variable data that vary from sheet to sheet on which images are to be printed and the registered form data for each sheet.
JP-A-2002-342039 (Patent Document 1) discloses an output system for variable printing including output apparatus that process data to be registered so as to be used for a large number of times (to be referred to as master data hereinafter) and variable data including data associated with the master data and output data according to the master data and the variable data, a host computer connected to each of the output apparatus by way of a bidirectional communication line and an output server. The output server includes a master data analysis means for receiving the master data from the host computer and analyzing, unfolding and storing the master data, a management means for managing management information including the unfolded master data unfolded by the analyzing means and management information on each transmission of master data to any of the output apparatus, acquiring and managing information relating to the specifications and the performances of all the output apparatus connected to the output server by way of bidirectional communication lines, a first determination means for determining the output apparatus that should hold the unfolded master data according to the information from the management means and a first output means for outputting information including the unfolded master data to the output apparatus determined by the first determination means, and each of the output apparatus has a registration means for registering the received master data in the internal memory device thereof according to the information including the master data received from the output server.